Watch Diary: Girls Incarcerated

Girls Incarcerated.

Girls Incarcerated is a documentary on Netflix that is based in a juvenile correctional facility, following the lives of girls in the facility involving the drama, people arriving and people leaving, and also the staff who are there to keep the girls in check, but also be their support.

It is shot handheld of what the girls do throughout the day, including regular interviews with them and using the interviews as voice over at times. There is no presenter of the show or anyone voicing the questions. Occasionally you'll hear the questions being asked for context, but it's never done regularly.

I found it interesting how it was shot as this meant that the action could play out in front of the crew without anyone interfering with the action, and it also felt as though the characters could act more normally in front of the camera without having someone follow around always asking questions. They were able to get information about the incidents after they had happened in interviews, which they could cross-cut with the incident shots to narrate what was happening. It was also great that they followed up with the people after they had left to see how they were doing outside of the facility so the viewer was able to understand their home life as well as they life in the facility. This highlighted the struggles that they had trying to integrate back into society.

I found it unusual how it was shot in a series format, and at first I was surprised but then once I had seen a few episodes I was able to understand why. At first, it felt like it could have been summed up in an hour long film, finishing with some of the characters leaving the facility and a follow-up on them back home. But in a series form, this highlights that life went on back in the facility, and that although that person was missed by their friends who were still there, things still continued, and people there still had months or weeks left until they could go home, and that people were still waiting for their probation and getting themselves in trouble or making changes to their behaviour. It highlighted that although there was an end for 1 person, there were still a lot of beginnings to be had and during that journey, a lot of changes. So it was right for it to be covered in a series for it to be shown properly, without leaving the viewer thinking they had been watching it just for the people they were shown and not the facility in general.

I really liked how the programme developed through multiple episodes. I think they made the right decision on how it should be filmed and they had chosen the right people to film as they were particularly interesting. Although it's not similar to what we are doing for or documentary it's shown to me how important the style of filming is as this can have a huge affect on how the viewer reads the story.